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| Leaving Palleul lock |
8.5°
C Sunny start with a cold breeze, grey clouds gathering so only brief glimpses
of the sun. There was a game of boating musical chairs going on as we got ready
to move. A loaded péniche (called Priscilla) left the silo quay in front of us
and an empty pusher pair (with the lovely name of Sweetness) moved into his
place, while another loaded boat was reversing up the canal towards us to go on
the quay opposite us where Sweetness had just set off from. We followed
Priscilla from Douai to the lock. A loaded Dutch péniche called Jolise,
followed by a Dutch cruiser called Waterman, went past heading for Marquion
lock. The crew on the cruiser ignored us (invisible again) but waved to
Graham!
Priscilla slowed off and came to a standstill on the bend before the last lock
on the Canal du Nord, lock 1 Palleul, so we hovered behind it. An empty pusher
pair called Imari came up the lock, then the boat in front of Priscilla went
into the lock and down, so we went around the loaded boat and tied up on the
quay above the lock to wait. Mike tried asking the keeper on VHF radio if we
could go in with Priscilla but got no reply, so Graham went back down the
towpath on foot
to talk to the skipper – he called the lock keeper who said one
of us could go in with Priscilla, the other would have to wait, then Graham
told him we could go side by side as we were narrow boats! OK! Another loaded
péniche was catching up and we wondered if they would stop us going in. Then we
spotted yet another loaded péniche behind that, so that would make another lock
full and we’d be OK. Loaded péniche Sebastien came up, then we went down 7.1m
with Priscilla. We followed the loaded péniche through the rows of moored
péniches down towards Arleux and he stopped in a gap between the moored boats.
As we turned right at the junction with the canal de la Sensée Graham called on
the radio to say there was a fishermen on the apex of the bend who’d caught a
big fish and so we both went wide on the bend and slowed down to watch him play
it and land it – it was enormous. We’d not seen anyone catch such a big fish for
ages. The canal de la Sensée is wide and deep and there are trees on both banks
with a scattering of wooden chalets and caravans and small houses. The village
of Fressies had an unusual tower (Mike took a photo of it) which was more like
a town
hall clock tower than a church tower. Nothing moving. Lunch on the move.
We passed a moored péniche called Cum Deo tied up at a quay waiting to load.
Shortly afterwards a loaded Dutch péniche called Westropa went past, its young
deckhand was busily painting the rust spots on its coamings. The Dutchman was
being followed by a neat little Dutch barge conversion which was
French-flagged. MR led the way into the old canal which leads to le Bassin
Rond. A sign at the entrance warned that the depth was only 0.9m so Mike
watched the echo sounder and noted that the entrance shallowed to about 0.8m
below the bottom of the boat, making it about 1.5m deep, then the depth
increased. A pretty little canal, much narrower with overhanging trees and lots
of flowers along the towpath, which opened out into the wider “large” (basin)
where some youths were having instructions on
windsurfing. Graham spotted a DB
for sale and went to have a look. They wanted 150,000€ for it. Bit expensive. A
guy on the trip boat moored on the far side asked if we were looking for
somewhere to moor, thanks but no, we were just passing through, pausing to look
at the barge for sale. We skirted around the windsurfers, most of whom were laughing,
yelling and falling off (it wasn’t very windy). Turned right, no boats on the
pontoon, past the retired péniches La Louve and Serenad, then turned right on
the Escaut towards Cambrai. A couple of kilometres to the first lock, Iwuy
number 5, where the left hand chamber of the pair was activated by sensors, it
emptied and we went in, then Jill lifted the blue rod and the lock filled,
lifting us up 2.7m. A VNF man in a van arrived. He was shepherding a downhill
loaded péniche called Baltes, which went into the right hand chamber. Graham had
a go at improving his French and asked the VNF man if we could have a zapper
(we’d need one to go back down the lock, which
isn’t manned - normally you have
to call on the intercom and whoever you speak to presses a button to let you
have a zapper which then slides down a chute). On our return we have to
remember to post the zapper back into the box next to the lock cabin. A little
further upriver we arrived at the silo quay which is no longer used. As I got
off in the long grass with the centre rope, a man with a tractor towing a grass
cutter asked if it was our car parked on the adjacent patch of grass that he
was about to cut. (It was Graham’s) No, it’s our friend’s but we’ll ask him to
move it. In the meantime Mike asked if he’d cut the grass along the quay first
– he said he was only there to cut the square of grass where the car was parked,
but OK he’d cut it for us. We shoved the boat out from the quay and stood off while
he cut the grass. I handed Mike four bottles of 33s beer for him – he would
only accept one. It was 3.30pm as we knocked pegs in and attached to a nicely
mown quay. Mike and Graham went to retrieve our car from Moislains.
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| A few of the boats moored below Palleul lock at Arleux |
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| He can only just about lift it! |
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| Note the size of that tail - it's as big as the fisherman's leg! |
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| Church tower at Fressies |
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| Le Bassin Rond |
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| Moored on the Escaut at Iwuy |
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